How to Start a Classroom LMS

By: Justin Ferriman • July 18, 2014
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flipped-class-jpgIf you are a teacher and are considering ways to make your classroom more dynamic, then one of the easiest ways to get started is to create your own personal online (virtual) classroom from your students.

There are many programs out there that give you hosted solutions, but you will be limited in the level of customization you are permitted to implement. Not to mention that most of these platforms are “cold”, or lack any personal touch.

How to Get Started

You may already be familiar with WordPress, and know that it is one of the most flexible free pieces of software available today. There are many themes available (both free and paid) that will make it easy for you to make the learning experience unique.

All you need is hosting. When you sign-up with a host such as this one, WordPress will already be installed and ready to go.

After creating the necessary pages (“Home”, “About”, “Contact”, etc.), you will be ready to install a WordPress LMS plugin (we happen to know of a good one 😉 ) to make course creation and delivery a piece-of-cake.

Here’s a tip: Create a course per class, and then create a Lesson for each week of the semester. You can then use Topics for the subcategories, for example, each session. Populate the content, add quizzes, and anything else you feel will be useful!

Don’t want students to skip ahead? No problem, you can drip-feed your Lessons to become available at specified intervals. Using the LearnDash Group feature, you can enroll all students into the course at the same time so that they will be delivered the content on the same schedule.

From start to finish, this process will probably take you a week – assuming you have all the content already created. If you have to create the content, it will take longer. The point is, once you have it complete all you need to do is maintain it and interact with your students.

So what are you waiting for? In a couple weeks you could have a robust class learning management system!

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter